Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday eBook

This completes the list of English violinists of note
who were born previous to the nineteenth century.
The later ones we shall find in their place in succeeding
chapters, but there have been very few violinists
of English birth who have followed the career of the
“virtuoso.” Even Antonio James Oury,
who made a series of concert tours lasting nine years,
during which he occasionally appeared in conjunction
with De Beriot and Malibran, is hardly known as a “virtuoso,”
and was not all English. But there are pathetic
circumstances in regard to the career of Oury.
He was the son of an Italian of noble descent, who
had served as an officer in the army of Napoleon,
and had been taken prisoner by the English. Making
the best of his misfortunes the elder Oury settled
in England, married a Miss Hughes, and became a professor
of dancing and music.

The son, Antonio, began to learn the violin at the
age of three, in which he was a year or two ahead
of the average virtuoso, and he made great progress.
By and by he heard Spohr, and after that his diligence
increased, for he practised, during seven months, not
less than fourteen hours a day. Even Paganini
used to sink exhausted after ten hours’ practice.
In 1820, we are told, he went to Paris and studied
under Baillot, Kreutzer, and Lafont, receiving from
each two lessons a week for several successive winters.
With such an imposing array of talent at his service
much might be expected of Mr. Oury, and he actually
made his debut at the Philharmonic concerts in London.

There was another unfortunate officer of Napoleon
who became tutor to the Princesses of Bavaria.
His name was Belleville. Mr. Oury met his daughter,
and, there being naturally a bond of sympathy between
them, they married. She was an amiable and accomplished
pianist, and together they made the nine years’
concert tour.

During the period in which the art of violin playing
was being perfected on the Continent, the English
were too fully occupied with commercial pursuits to
foster and develop the art. Up to the present
day the most eminent virtuoso is commonly spoken of
as a “fiddler.” Even Joachim, when
he went to a barber’s shop in High Street, Kensington,
and declined to accept the advice of the tonsorial
artist, and have his hair cropped short, was warned
that “he’d look like one o’ them
there fiddler chaps.” The barber apparently
had no greater estimation of the violinist’s
art than the latter had of the tonsorial profession,
and the situation was sufficiently ludicrous to form
the subject of a picture in Punch, and thus
the matter assumed a serious aspect.

England has not been the home of any particular school
of violin playing, but has received her stimulus from
Continental schools, to which her sons have gone to
study, and from which many eminent violinists have
been imported.

The word “school,” so frequently used
in connection with the art of violin playing, seems
to lead to confusion. The Italian school, established
by Corelli, appears to have been the only original
school. Its pupils scattered to various parts
of Europe, and there established other schools.
To illustrate this statement, we will follow in a direct
line from Corelli, according to the table given in
Grove’s Dictionary.